


Proper Incentive

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-16
Updated: 2010-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-13 06:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/133764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ariadne gets shot, Arthur stitches her up, and innuendo commences.</p><p>For the prompt <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/11005.html?thread=22863357#t22863357">Ariadne is hurt in RL and needs stitches. Hospitals/doctors are a no-no, so Arthur has to do the stitching.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Proper Incentive

Ariadne ran, not even sparing a glance behind her. This could _not_ be happening. It could not. She would check her totem right now if she had time, but the pounding of feet behind her prevented that. She didn't know where the others were, but that was fine. When it was safe, they would all find their way back to the warehouse they were working out of. She knew this neighborhood, and if she could only get down an alley and off of this side street, she could hide in the crowds. One of the goons behind her tried to fire a gun at her, but she was a tiny target in motion. She had her own Beretta now, though she knew she was a crap shot while running. There was no point in wasting bullets when she just had to keep moving.

A bullet grazed her thigh, and it threw off her stance. She staggered for a few steps, but she was close to the alley she had been aiming for. She ran past the pain, gritting her teeth and grunting. She could feel the blood running down her leg, grateful she was wearing black jeans. No one would see the blood through the fabric once she got into the crowds.

She hid inside a restaurant, watching the goons pass her by. She ordered a cup of tea to quiet her shaking nerves, then went into the back bathroom. There was a jagged wound along the outside of her thigh, and she wanted to laugh hysterically. No more bikinis for her, then. She took off her scarf and ran it under the tap, cleaning off her leg as best as she could and tying it tight around her thigh. She grit her teeth against the pain and groaned a little. The others had warned her about this sort of thing, but it didn't exactly prepare her for how much it hurt. She sincerely hoped they were all right, but privately thought that their "You get used to it" advice was utter bullshit. Running in dreams was one thing. Arthur made her run exercises endlessly in the dreaming so that she could prepare for anything. In the real world, blood loss mattered when it came to running away.

The taxi she hailed brought her to a location about five blocks from the warehouse. She went into the book store long enough to be sure that no one had followed the taxi. A little paranoia wouldn't hurt in this case, after all.

There was a faint limp in her step as she entered the warehouse. She had to keep a white knuckled grip on the railing as she went up, and she could feel a warm burst of blood running down her leg as she maneuvered the landing. Why couldn't they have gotten a first floor space?

Arthur was there, watching one of the other entrances as she hobbled in. "God, Ariadne! What happened?"

"Got shot at," she bit out, hobbling toward a chair. "Ow!" she cried as she collapsed into it. "I'm bleeding again."

Eyes wide in alarm, Arthur knelt by her side. "How bad is it?"

"Honestly? I should probably go to the hospital. I'm bleeding like a stuck pig."

"That's not an option right now," he said quietly, looking up at her.

"That's why I'm here," she bit out. No need in yelling at Arthur for stating the obvious.

"Get out of your jeans. I'll fix you up."

Ariadne barked out laughter. "If that's a pickup line..."

He smiled, a slight crinkling by his eyes showing off his amusement. "Trust me, I have better ones. I'm really just going to fix you up."

"Pity," she replied, smiling in spite of her pain.

"Some other time, then?" he asked, heading to get the first aid kit.

Their first aid kit wasn't exactly one of those store bought kits. It held bandages and gauze, as well as rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide and antibiotic ointment for scrapes. It also held sterile disposable scalpels, sterile gloves of various sizes, betadine, surgical steel tools and pickups, catgut thread, lidocaine, needles and syringes, as well as dozens of carefully labeled bottles that Yusuf had created. In short, it looked more like a trauma surgeon's bedside kit.

Arthur knew his way around the kit and carefully took off the scarf Ariadne had used as a bandage. He put it aside to try to get the blood out later, though Ariadne was sure it was a lost cause. He cleaned her leg liberally with the peroxide and some bottled water. She halfway wished she was wearing something nicer than the plain cotton briefs she was wearing, but at least they were clean and not ragged-looking, not that she would ever admit to wanting to impress Arthur. Ariadne couldn't help but make little hisses of pain as he injected lidocaine into the area he was about to stitch up. It burned, and she had to grip the chair tightly to keep herself still. She watched as he pulled on a pair of the sterile gloves after swabbing the entire area with betadine and laying out the tools he would need. "You've done this before," she commented.

He was graceful as he used the tools to run the curved needle through her skin. "I only wish I could remember the dose for the lidocaine. I guessed."

"Feels a little better, at least. I mean, it still hurts, but I can deal with this."

He looked up after pulling the needle through another part of the wound. "I should've looked for the alcohol to give you some first. I'm sure Eames keeps some around."

She laughed, and he smiled at her again in response. "They got me pretty deep, huh?"

"At least it's still a surface wound. This would hurt a lot more if I had to dig a bullet out."

Ariadne watched him approximate the edges of the wound carefully as he stitched her up, going as quickly as he could without damaging the tissue. His stitches were small and neat, and it didn't look as if he was pulling the skin too tightly together. "Were you a doctor?" she asked, watching him.

"Nope. Never finished medical school."

She blinked in surprise. "But you'd gone."

He grinned as he pulled the last few stitches through. "It seems to come in handy, if you think about it."

It explained the precise way he seemed to take note of things, why it was easy for him to categorize a lot of information about people. "Do you miss it?" she asked, watching him clean off her leg and then pull off the gloves.

Arthur smiled wide enough to show off his dimples. "This is better most of the time. If I really feel like reliving those days, there's always a dream."

"Thank you," Ariadne said, watching him tape gauze over antibiotic ointment.

"Does it still sting?"

"Yeah. And I don't think I want to run around for the rest of the day."

He laughed and started cleaning up after himself. "Well, I wouldn't recommend it, either. Doctor's orders," he said with an impish smile.

Ariadne couldn't help but grin at him. "Feel like playing doctor a little more?"

He hovered over her, mouth just an inch from her own. "If I play doctor with you the way I want to, those stitches are going to get pulled."

Lips parted, Ariadne could only stare. "Oh," she murmured breathlessly. She watched as he pulled back. "That's not fair."

"Consider it proper incentive to heal quickly," Arthur replied, unrepentant.

Ariadne scowled at his retreating back. She definitely couldn't heal fast enough.

 

The End


End file.
